Linux’s creator Linus Torvalds has released a new version of the Linux kernel following seven release candidates.
While he did consider creating an eighth release candidate for Linux 5.8 last week, on Sunday Torvalds decided “it’s not just worth waiting another week when there aren’t any big looming worries around”.
Linux 5.8 succeeds the latest stable Linux Kernel 5.7 and includes all of the changes that were pulled out during the kernel 5.8 merge windows. As Linux 5.8 received a surprisingly high number of merge requests during its merge window, Torvalds said that it is one of the biggest Linux releases yet in terms of the number of commits and close to Linux 4.9.
Linux 5.8
When it comes to new changes and features, Linux Kernel 5.8 includes several updates that address security, memory management, hardware support, new drivers and more.
Some of the standout additions include Thunderbolt 4.0 support, improved Arm-64 security, support for booting on Power 10 CPUs and an energy driver for AMD’s recent CPUs. Linux 5.8 also adds improvements to open-source AMD Radeon graphics drivers and Microsoft exFAT drivers.
Users interested in downloading the latest Linux kernel version can download it from the official page. However, it will still take some time for the kernel to find its way into other popular Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Arch Linux and Linux Mint.
Linux 5.8: Key Features & Changes
If you were expecting Linux 5.8 to be one of the ‘biggest kernel releases’ in a long time you had good reason Linus hyped things up as such when the merge window for this release opened. Sadly you will need to put some brakes on your expectations.
Linux 5.8 is a pretty standard release. Not too big. Not too small. Just kinda there, doing everything the last kernel did (okay, and a bit more) better.
We’ve been spoiled by headline change after headline change in the last few releases, and that couldn’t continue.
Still, there are some new features and key changes worth knowing about, including:
- New AMD energy driver for Zen/Zen2 energy sensors
- AMD Renoir CPU temperature monitoring
- AMD Renoir ACP audio support
- AMDGPU Trusted Memory Zone Support
- Kernel Concurrency Sanitizer
- Boost support in the CPPC CPUFreq driver
- Open Source Adreno 405 / 640 / 650 GPU support
- Shadow Call Stack and Branch Target Identification for ARM64
- More exFAT driver improvements
- Thunderbolt ARM (i.e. USB 4.0) support
- Intel Atom camera driver
- Ability to swap
fnandctrlkeys on Apple keyboards
There is also also a swathe of miscellaneous file system, system architecture, memory, and performance improvements on offer. The kind of invisible meta-glue magic that holds your system together — now even better™.
A crop of ARM-based single-board computer and reference platforms gain support in this release, including the ODroid-C4, Mediatek MT8173 (used in various ARM-based Chromebooks), and the Renesas RZ/G1H.
For a more detailed look at this release in all of its binary glory keep an eye fixed on KernelNewbies.org for a comprehensive overview of all the core changes.
Install Linux Kernel 5.8 on Ubuntu
You can install new mainline Linux kernels in Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other Ubuntu-based distributions using the mainline kernel builds built by Ubuntu developers.
But, and this is important: you shouldn’t do that.
Ubuntu uses the Ubuntu Linux kernel (which is like the upstream one, but with some Ubuntu specific patches or tweaks made). Major new Ubuntu Linux kernel releases don’t happen often and, when they do, they’re typically tied to a new stable release.
